| by Rami G. Khouri | Released: 12 Dec 2006 |
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Is there a rational, sensible middle ground between those who question or deny the Holocaust against the Jews and threaten to wipe out Israel, and those who maintain that Israel can do no wrong and must receive total, perpetual American support? That middle ground has been thin in recent years. In the United States, in particular, it is almost impossible to discuss in public the issues of Israel’s policies, Israeli-American relations, and how these two impact on America’s degraded ties with the Arab world.
The prevalent tone of public and private discussions remains a questioning of why the Arabs and Iranians hate Israel and America, and make political or military war against them. The dominant litmus test of legitimacy is for Hamas and Hizbullah to recognize Israel’s right to exist, without asking Israel to halt its continuing assaults on Arab lands and rights. That attitude, over decades, has understandably generated a strong reaction against Israel and the US throughout the region and the world.
This cyclical, cause-and-effect nature of Israeli-American-Arab relationships is rarely acknowledged in the United States. A rare exception was the paper published in March by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University. In “The Israel Lobby,” they questioned whether the pro-Israel lobby in the United States served the best purposes of Israel and the U.S., or whether its virtual stranglehold on U.S. policies in the Middle East actually is detrimental to both Israeli and American national interests.
Their original paper in the London Review of Books and the Harvard website generated fierce criticism, to which they initially offered only occasional, partial responses. They were accused of a wide range of terrible deeds and sentiments, including anti-semitism, blaming the Jews for America’s troubles in the Middle East, seeing American Jews as disloyal or even treasonous citizens, cavorting with racists like David Duke and other neo-Nazis, being anti-Zionists who do not feel that Israel’s survival is important, exaggerating the power and nature of the pro-Israel lobby and its control of American foreign policy, and many other major and minor points.
To find out where things stand now and what might happen next in this important debate, I went to see Stephen Walt in his Kennedy School office at Harvard the other day. The authors knew their article would be controversial, Walt told me, because it addressed a set of important issues that few mainstream scholars or journalists had examined. They expected professional criticism and personal attacks, because they challenged some powerful individuals and organizations, and cast doubt on principal American-Israeli historical claims and policy positions. They feel they opened a space for an honest debate on the issue, where the focus should remain.
Walt and Mearsheimer are now completing a full length book on the subject of the Israeli lobby and its impact, to be published in the United States and a dozen other countries next year -- a good sign, given that the original American journal that has commissioned their article subsequently declined to publish it. Equally importantly, they have written a detailed 80-page point-by-point essay responding to all the accusations and criticisms made against them by a wide range of people.
Their essay is a calm, specific rebuttal of every criticism made against their original paper, showing the criticisms to be overwhelmingly mistaken and invalid. Where they found some criticisms to be justified, they show why the points raised do not significantly affect their main arguments.
They grouped the many attacks against them into three broad groups: unsupported ad hominem accusations of being anti-semites, liars, or bigots who relied on neo-Nazi websites; clear misrepresentations of their views, by accusing them of arguments they did not make, or ignoring important points that they explicitly made; and, accusations that the original essay was riddled with factual errors and was sloppy scholarship.
Most criticisms aimed to discredit the authors, divert the discussion to tangential issues, or bury the original paper’s core arguments about the questionable impact of the pro-Israel lobby. The rebuttal essay convincingly shreds the arguments of all the critics, whether respected scholars or others. It also reaffirms their original point: any honest discussion of U.S.-Israel relations and policies will often be met with a broadside assault by the pro-Israel lobby to silence the debate.
The authors are respected, established and self-confident enough to withstand such an assault that would have felled lesser folks. Intelligently, they disdain the sort of cheap personal attacks and innuendo that were hurled at them, and instead maintain their sharp focus on the core issue that they feel deserves wider discussion.
“We feel that we have started an important public debate in the United States and abroad,” Walt told me.
“The United States faces many challenges in the Middle East, and Americans need to be able to discuss all of the forces that shape U.S. policy in this region in a candid and serious way,” he added, reflecting the tone of their rebuttal essay.
“We are gratified that this conversation is now occurring, for what America needs is a sober and calm discussion of these issues based on logic and evidence, as opposed to a conversation filled with name-calling and character assassination, or myths and misconceptions.”
Sounds like the American way to me, and very much worth affirming in the United States and emulating around the world. Walt and Mearsheimer were right in March to raise this issue, and they are right again today to move the debate forward in a calm, facts-based manner.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Duke interview about Zionism
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